A woman holds a portrait
of former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden in front of
her face as she stands in front of the U.S. embassy during a
protest in Berlin, July 4, 2013.REUTERS/Thomas Peter

A federal judge has ruled that the
National Security Agency program that collects information, or
"metadata," on telephone calls in the United States is likely
unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

In a ruling, U.S. District Court
Judge Richard Leon suggested that the program, exposed by leaker
Edward Snowden earlier this year, goes too far under the Fourth
Amendment's protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.
And he said that the Justice Department did not demonstrate that
the program had thwarted terrorist attacks or
threats.

"I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary
invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and
retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for
purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial
approval," Leon wrote in the ruling.

Leon issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the NSA
from collecting metadata from the Verizon accounts of the
plaintiffs in the case. But Leon granted a stay in his order to
allow for a government appeal. It is the first significant legal
setback for the federal government since the Snowden
disclosures.

"The author of
our constitution, James Madison … would be aghast" at the
programs, Leon wrote.